


The Amazing Gastric Brooding Frog (Fury ain't paid enough for this shit)

by meh_guh



Series: Tony the Polyglot and his Sneaky Sniper Boyfriend [3]
Category: Marvel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meh_guh/pseuds/meh_guh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton, Sniper Extraordinaire and his genius <del>playboy<del></del></del> billionaire polyglot boyfriend are <i>totally<i> professional agents of SHIELD's special task force. Really. No childish antics here. Nope.</i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to zessa for prompting several parts of this; hope you enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: aha, just fixing some spelling goofs and the stupid change-in-tense that happened

It really isn't fair, Clint thinks as he watches Tony and Natasha out the corner of his eye. The two of them really should _not_ be that chummy, especially if it was going to be paired with giggling and quick glances at Clint. He couldn't understand the rapid-fire Macedonian, but so help him if they were trading stories about him...

He set his jaw (absolutely not pouting, thank you very much), and turned his full attention to Director Fury at the head of the table.

On the plus side, the giggle twins were getting the muscle under Fury's eye twitching at a much higher rate than either Clint or Tony alone had ever managed. Clint risked another glance at them, heads bent together over one of Tony's gajillion portable screens. If Fury lost it within the next two minutes, he was prepared to let the whole excluding-Clint thing go.

' _If_ you're quite finished,' Fury starts, and wow. Clint hasn't seen a vein-throb that pronounced since he'd been snaked in an assassination three years ago by the hilariously meat-tastic diet of his Bulgarian target and an unfortunately messy stroke.

'You need me to run down to the infirmary for some warfarin, sir?' he asks, bracing his hands on the arms of his chair and making as if to get up. 'Or valium?'

'Sit,' Fury barks, jabbing a finger in Clint's direction without turning. 'Do I have to split you two up?'

Tony straightens in his seat, folding his hands on the table, and winking at Clint. 'No sir. We'll be good sir. My mother doesn't want me to get detention again, sir.'

Natasha mutters something out of the corner of her mouth, and Clint is charmed to see Fury actually claw at his face. Tony replied, grinning, and OK. Yeah, Clint had enough Macedonian down now to understand _that_. He meets Tony's eyes and winks, nodding his assent.

'Did Tony just call someone a three-toed sloth?' Cap asks, wounded expression fooling absolutely no one. Man played the shucks-I'm-just-too-wholesome-for-words card once too often, as far as Clint was concerned.

Tony and Natasha collapse laughing. Well, Tony slumps forward onto the table, and Natasha's lips twitch, her eyes cutting across to sparkle at Clint.

Yeah, Clint sighs. They were swapping notes about him during the attempted briefing. He's going to have to get Natasha about six pounds of those macaroons with the special flavours to get her to keep quiet about the thing in the yurt. If she hadn't already blurted it out while she and her new lady-bro were braiding each others' hair and practicing applying make-up...

Actually, he wouldn't put that past Tony. Dammit, that mental image was never going away.

Fury lets out a noise like a wounded buffalo, and throws his hands in the air. 'It's OK. I'm sure this terrorist cell will wait on you people and your terrifyingly middle school antics. It's not like there could be _lives_ in the balance or anything.'

Natasha's eyebrow jerks a bare milimetre up, and just like that she's back to Agent Romanov: perfect soldier.

'All right,' Fury straightens his shoulders, flicking the projector on. 'Avengers-'

'Jesus Christ,' Tony says, shooting out of his chair. 'Did you prepare a fucking _Powerpoint_?! Did you remember to include plenty of clip art and-'

Cap's hand closes around the back of Tony's neck, bringing him back to his seat, the other hand clapping over Tony's mouth. Tony's expression is _priceless_. Clint squints at the ceiling, hoping to find cameras; he _really_ wants a picture.

'Thank you, Captain,' Fury glares at Tony again, and refocuses on the briefing. Clint pulls a sympathetic face at Tony, trying not to laugh when Cap's hands just stays there, keeping Tony gagged. After a minute or two, Tony folds his arms, attempting an air of 'this was my idea' with little success. His boyfriend is _ridiculous_.

' _As I was saying_ ,' Fury grinds out, glaring around the table. 'We have a potential situation brewing which requires your unique skills.'

He clicks through a few slides, all bog standard boring headshots of Russian mobsters. Right up Natasha's alley, and zero interest to Clint without target designations. He stops listening, pulling a paperclip from a file on the table and a rubber band from his pocket. He checked to make sure Fury was facing his powerpoint, and twists them into a tiny slingshot.

The first ball of scrap paper bounces off Tony's forehead, landing Clint a pissy glare. He grins, and sends the next ball at Cap's ear. Third shot, he takes his life in his hands and sends a ball into Natasha's cleavage. She was so focused on being attentive that it actually landed, bouncing once before dropping out of sight. Clint can't help whooping triumphantly, jumping up and pumping his fist.

'Agent Barton,' Fury says in a voice like chocolate syrup covered gravel. 'You're excited by the details of our terrorists' funding?'

'Absolutely, sir,' Clint grins in the face of Natasha's painful-death-promising glare and sits back down. 'Please continue.'

Clint was pleased to note his very own vein-throb just before Fury clicks his remote again and gets back to the briefing.

****

'So...' Clint jogs up behind Natasha as she leaves the conference room, staying just outside her effective-lunge-zone. 'Nutshell it for me?'

She flicks him a glance over her shoulder. 'Nothing for you yet, Cupid. Just me and Tony so far.'

'Wait,' Clint steps closer and grabs her shoulder. 'Tony? What's he-'

There's a crowded moment that ends with Clint slammed face-first against the wall, Natasha's knuckles digging into his kidney.

'He's my eyes in the sky, with the added bonus of being able to call him for backup in Macedonian which none of the targets speak,' she leans in, lips resting against his earlobe. 'And if you put _anything_ down my cleavage _ever_ again...'

'Gotcha,' Clint spreads his fingers in surrender. 'Your top pocket's off limits.'

Natasha just snarls and lets him go. Whoo, retaining all limbs and range of motion: go Team Barton!

Clint salutes her back as she sashays away, then goes to kidnap Tony for a quickie in the janitorial closet.


	2. Chapter 2

The takedown of Fury's terrorists is so textbook it makes Clint want to cry. He didn't even get to bust out the new flashbang arrows Tony'd handed over two weeks ago. He soothes his bored sulk with a few rounds of Surprise Attack Bingo, laughing gleefuly as he runs full tilt away from Hill's snarled threats and her return volley of pens.

He rounds a corner, only skidding a little and bounces off Thor's stupidly-firm chest. Thor catches him under the elbows and smiles bemusedly down at him.

'What creature are you fleeing?' he booms, and Clint has the feeling Thor's every bit as impatient with the lack of emergencies as Clint is. So instead of explaining, Clint grins and swarms up Thor, launching himself at the vent grate in the ceiling from Thor's stupidly-giant shoulders. He flips a salute at Thor's smiling frown, and scuttles away as he hears Hill's boots gettting closer.

He stifles a laugh when he hears her cursing Thor out, and heads toward the lab. He'd _told_ Fury not to make the air ducts large enough for infiltration. He'd _told_ him to block them off so they weren't an all-access pass to the Helicarrier. This was just a demonstration of why Fury should've listened to Clint. Probably even counted as training.

****

Fury's exactly as happy about Clint's methods of self-entertainment as always; Clint thinks he saw him popping antacids before _and_ after the 'Goddammit-Barton-I-can-and-will-have-you-shot' meeting. End result of which was a three day pass and orders to 'get the fuck outta my city for the duration'.

Clint grins, and heads to Stark Industries to bug his boyfriend.

Tony's in his office, feet up on the desk and phone out. Clint catches sight of Angry Birds before Tony throws the phone at the desk and grins at him.

'So Fury's exiled me from New York,' Clint smirks at Tony from across the desk. 'Wanna go to Vegas?'

'I suppose I can take one for the team,' Tony bounces to his feet. ' _If_ you agree to work the poles on the jet.'

Clint grins, twirling on the spot. 'I got moves like you wouldn't believe, baby.'

They don't make it out of the office for two hours, and Tony's new PA gives them a wounded look when Tony sticks his (freshly-mussed) head out to ask her to call his pilot. Clint blows her a kiss and gets back to trying to find his socks.

****

Tony's souped-up jet makes the flight in just over four and a half hours, which turns out to be exactly enough time for Clint to get bored of playing with the retractable stripper poles and the lovely flight attendants. Tony spends the whole flight lounging in a plush chair sipping sake and watching Clint shake his stuff.

'Your turn on the way back,' Clint informs him as they exit into what feels like 400 degrees of breezeless flat desert. 'I packed red and gold nipple tassels for you.'

Tony barks a surprised laugh and lets his hand slide down to tangle his fingers with Clint's. 'If you're a good boy, I suppose I could be tempted.'

The hire-a-driver has about as much personality as a bathroom sponge, so Clint resolves to hijack the flashiest car he comes across rather than subject himself to another 'certainly sir' from anyone other than Jarvis. When they reach the Bellagio, Tony's seized by the concierge before he's even properly out of the car, and Clint gets his very own keeper as they're hustled inside to the strains of offers of comped rooms and high rollers' rooms.

Clint hasn't ever been to Vegas except for work reasons, so he dawdles as they go through the gigantic entrance way and stares. Tony's disgustingly rich, but it doesn't really impact on Clint's life that much. Sure, the Avengers _never_ wait for seating in restaurants, and the magic limitless money cards they'd been issued for team charges are eventually charged to Tony, but Tony's a workaholic. So most of the time, they're just slobbing around in the tower, ordering in obscene amounts of take out and taking turns trying to pry Tony out of his lab.

This is a whole other ball of wax. _This_ is what he'd been expecting when Fury had first floated the idea of recruiting Iron Man: sleek and spoiled rich kid brattiness, million dollar suits and all the offensive privilege he'd seen on E whenever they'd done one of their 'Most Obnoxiously Charming Rich Dudes' specials.

Tony notices Clint's not there, and he whirls around to head back, trailing hotel staff like a particularly well-dressed comet. He doesn't say anything, just peers over his glasses and raises an eyebrow. Clint laughs and slings an arm around Tony's waist. Tony grins back, and the staff melt away like so much smoke, leaving the concierge to lead them to the suite alone.

As soon as the door's closed, Tony tackles Clint to the ludicrous oversized bed.

'You said something about nipple tassels?' he runs his hands up Clint's sides, shoving his shirt out of the way. 'Did you bring any other toys?'

'Pfft,' Clint flips them over. 'What do you take me for? Of _course_ I did.'

'Well?' Tony stretches out, shifting his hands to behind his head. 'Go ahead.'

****

Vegas is everything its reputation promises, and Clint manages not to get drunkenly hitched to Tony, even if the thought of Fury's expression is the greatest temptation he's ever faced. He mentions this to Tony, leaning in to whisper in his ear when they're dropping stupid amounts of money on the roulette table. Tony swivels on the spot, a terrible glint in his eye.

'It's a really bad idea,' Clint observes, thinking of what Phil would've said. Or _done_ to him, he lets himself wander down memory lane for a few yards before Tony grabs his hand and snaps him out of it.

'Clint Barton,' Tony says, leaning in to brush his lips against Clint's. 'Would you do me the honour of getting drunkenly hitched to me?'

Clint grins. 'Just how many of those free drinks have you had?'

Tony shrugs, sliding his hand down Clint's back to rest on his arse. 'It's so plebian to keep track.'

'You get Vegas hitched, Pepper'll have your nuts,' Clint drags Tony away from the table towards the elevators. 'I like your nuts attached.'

'True,' Tony dumps his empty glass on a passing waitress's tray. 'OK. No Deluxe Elvis pack.'

'On the other hand,' Clint ducks in for a kiss. 'I _am_ a fan of the King. Let's get photos, and pretend we did.'

'I like the way you think, Barton.'

****

The embarassment of US Weekly's cover spread of Tony and Clint in matching veils necking in front of a bemused Elvis and a crowd of showgirls is worth it for the screenshot Tony gets of Fury trying to keep his cool when he calls.


	3. Chapter 3

'So Pepper's got me doing an inspection of our Nagasaki plant,' Tony pants when he rolls off Clint.

Clint draws lazy patterns in the spunk on his belly. 'Awesome,' he levers himself up to find a wash cloth.

When he comes out of the ensuite, yawning and flopping down on the bed, Tony whacks him in the shoulder.

'I wasn't just telling you for shits and giggles,' he pouts.

Clint grunts at him, and props himself up putting his most attentive face on. 'OK. Why?'

Tony grins up at him. 'You wanna tag along? We can spend a few days in Tokyo, maybe head down to Beppu for the hot springs? You ever been in a Tokyo night club? They're something else.'

'This you asking me on another dirty weekend, Tony?' Clint hooks a leg over Tony's, drumming his fingers on the arc reactor.

Tony hums. 'I was thinking the whole team could go, but I _was_ planning on fucking you in a kimono.'

'Re-e-eally,' Clint rolls over to rest his chin on Tony's chest. 'You, me, or both dressed up?'

'All three sound good to me,' Tony grins at him. 'That's a yes, right?'

Clint waggles his eyebrows. 'Hell yeah. When?'

'Week after next, barring another apocalypse,' Tony closes his eyes, settling back into the pillows. 'Gonna ask the rest of the team tomorrow.'

'Awesome,' Clint presses a kiss against Tony's neck and rolls over to sleep.

****

'Damn, Stark,' Natasha pulls a reluctantly impressed face. 'This is quite the family vacation.'

'If you're a good girl,' Tony shoots back, twisting in the driver's seat to smirk at her as he switches lanes. 'I'll take you to Disneyland.'

'Eyes front!' Cap shrieks, like a little girl. Clint grins and makes a grab for the wheel, earning him a slapped wrist from Tony and another, louder shriek from the Super Soldier.

'Re _lax_ , Capsicle,' Tony lobs a can of something called Mr Boss over his shoulder at Cap. 'Have a coffee, sit back, we're _fine_.'

Clint twists to take a look at Cap's panicked face. For a man who rode a plane into the Arctic, he sure is twitchy about traffic. Though with Tony driving like this, it's undoubtably a good thing Banner opted out of the trip.

****

Clint had expected them to be met by an interpreter, but when Tony skids to a stop and leaps out in front of some impressively-impassive men in suits, he opens his mouth and out comes a stream of Japanese.

Clint shoots a surprised look back at Natasha, and they clamber out to gather behind Tony. There's a sort of slapstick repeated exchange of bows between the team (especially Cap) and the group of Japanese men, Cap's bows getting so deep he's almost kissing his knees before Tony grabs the back of Cap's neck to stop him, laughing an excuse to the welcome party.

'These are Mr Yoshimoto,' Tony turns to the Avengers, indicating the man in the front. 'And Doctors Kagami, Gangjeon, and Sakamoto, and their assistants Mr Li and Mr Yamashita.'

Clint catches his own name, and Cap's in Tony's rapid-fire Japanese when he finishes off the introductions, and Clint has to bite his lip when Dr Kagami restarts the competitive bowing with Cap.

'I think I'm getting sea-sick,' he mutters to Natasha, and has to move quickly to dodge her elbow.

Yoshimoto grunts something, and turns to lead them inside. Clint feels his eyebrows rise at that, and steps over to Tony.

'Aren't you his boss?' he whispers, staring at Yoshimoto's ruler-straight shoulders as he marches inside. 'I thought the Japanese were uber-polite? Wasn't that kinda rude?'

Tony laughs, slipping his arm around Clint's waist and he drags him inside, trailing the Doctors, their assistants and the Avengers. Thor seems to have struck up an easy friendship with Li, and Clint has another moment of weird dissonance at the half-understandable conversation. He'll never get totally used to the whole Allspeak thing, he decides.

****

Apparently Tony's known to be so fluent in Japanese that _no one_ here bothered to provide English speakers. The few scientists and random staff members they've been introduced to during the high speed tour who _claim_ to speak English have been so incomprehensible that Clint is half sure this is Tony punking him.

It's OK for Tony and Thor, and Natasha seems to be able to communicate with anyone through the power of her glare, so Clint winds up hanging back at Cap's side.

They've been marched about six miles through shiny labs and vast, dark halls stuffed with parts of some giant machine. Clint's starting to wonder whether Tony's building some sort of Earth-to-space defence platform, and he plans on asking later, away from Cap.

'Yoshimoto's taking us out to an _izakaya_ ,' Tony says when he finally drags himself away, sometime after 3am by Clint's calculation. He has to stifle his surprise when he checks his watch and it's only 8.

'What's that, then?' he brushes the hair off Tony's forehead, letting his fingers linger in a light caress. 'And can we eat it? I'm _starving_.'

'There's nothing like an _izakaya_ for fueling a night out,' Tony grins at him. 'And we'll be out with these guys for a few hours. Rude to refuse. Hope you like _yakitori_ and beer.'

Cap brightens significantly at the mention of food, and then Li and Yamashita come over and hustle everyone into a couple of cars.

****

Clint groans as he pushes away his twentieth plate, rubbing at his food-baby. 'I think I need a nap.'

Tony leans in, one hand taking advantage of the low lighing to slide up Clint's back teasingly. 'You _sure_ you didn't want to have some more _gyoza_? I think you frightened the natives.'

'Me?' Clint scoffs. 'I've eaten less than half what Thor and the Cap have. Is the owner rubbing his hands at all the profit, or is that my imagination?'

The owner, a Mr Saotome Tony had said, was grinning at Thor and sliding yet another plate in front of him. Thor beamed, and launched into a story about how Volstag would have eaten the entire contents of Saotome's kitchen. Saotome grins again, and Clint was pretty sure they'd managed that without Volstag, looking at the mountain of plates in front of him, Cap and Thor. Even Natasha seemed to have worked through half her body weight.

Clint was just about to lean over and suggest sneaking off for a quickie, when all the restaurant seemed to go crazy, waving their hands and shouting at Cap. Cap blinked up at the room, mouth dropping open. 'What did I do?'

Tony gets up, bobbing his head and making what sounded like apologetic noises before pulling Cap's chopsticks out of his rice.

'Lay them on the rest,' he told Cap. 'It's unlucky to leave them in your food.'

The commotion dies down, but Clint's pretty sure he sees a few sidelong glances at them after that.

'So,' he drawls when Tony comes back. 'How much longer are we hanging around?'

Tony shrugs. 'At least another two hours. It's customary to stay together for a few hours to cement good working relationships. Why?'

Clint does a quick check for surveilance, and slides his hand into Tony's lap. 'Oh, no reason. But for a dirty weekend it's been pretty PG so far.'

'Well,' Tony purrs. 'Let me pour another bottle of sake into Yoshimoto and I think we can sneak off. Can't have people starting to think of me as _reliable_ , can we?'

'What deluded fool would?' Clint lets his fingers wander over Tony's semi, toying with the idea of going down on him right here. It would be hot as hell, but Tony has to work with everyone in the room, and hilarious as Cap's expression would be it's ultimately a bad idea.

'I'm going to wait for you outside,' Clint says, fingers dragging as he pulls his hand back. 'Don't be too long, or I'll start without you.'

Tony just grins and heads back to Yoshimoto's table.

****

The next morning, Clint rolls off Tony snags a pair of boxers before wandering out of the bedroom and bouncing off Cap's chest. Cap steadies him, and stares down with wide, disappointed eyes.

'You left without the rest of the team last night.'

'Did you want to join in?' Clint asks, scratching at his belly and trying to dodge around Cap's massive frame to look for coffee. 'I'll ask Tony, but he's probably game.'

Cap didn't rise to the bait. Clint spends a moment mourning the ease with which he used to be able to embarrass the man; apparently he adapted really quickly. Which was a good thing in a soldier, Clint allowed, but it did put a crimp in his fun.

'You should have let us know when you left,' Cap folds his arms. 'Going maverick isn't a good SOP, regardless of what Tony thinks.'

'Tony thinks we're on holiday, Captain Downer,' Tony put in from behind Clint. 'Loosen up. You looked like you were having fun, and you wouldn't have if you'd come back with us.'

Tony punctuated this by slipping his hand down the front of Clint's boxers, and ha! That still sent him running!

'Morning, Sunshine,' Clint leans back into Tony's chest, enjoying the practiced, lazy strokes Tony's fallen automatically into. 'We Christening every room in the suite too?'

'Sure,' he can hear the grin in Tony's voice. 'And later today, I'll send someone out to buy kimonos.'

'Awesome,' Clint lets his head tip back to rest on Tony's shoulder. 'Make them real pretty ones.'

'You'll be the prettiest princess at the ball,' Tony promises, hand speeding up as Clint's hips start to thrust. He nips at Clint's jaw, pressing full length along Clint's back. 'And then I'll spread you out on a futon and fuck you slowly. Take you to pieces until you're begging for it...'

Clint gasps against Tony's throat and comes in a drawn-out wave of pleasure. He lets Tony take his weight as he ruts against Clint's back for a handful of thrusts before freezing. They stay there until both of them have their breathing under control, and then Clint drags Tony back to their room and into the ensuite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aer, your prompt-fu is most strong. I'm only halfway done with this Japan trip, but I felt bad about not updating, so it's in two parts.
> 
> I have no overarching gameplan for this, so lob any requests or prompts at me you want; I'll see what I can do ^_^
> 
> Thank you guys for reading and giving me wonderful prompty nudges, hope you enjoy!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this chapter got a little more explicit than the previous ones, so I'm upping the rating.
> 
> As always, Aer's prompt-fu is responsible, and any and all requests will be considered.
> 
> Thanks for your fantastic response, everyone, you're making me so very happy ^_^

Clint bows out of the Tony-business stuff that day and drags Cap along on a let's-be-terrible-American-tourists wander through Nagasaki. He invited the others, since Tony had said that it was just going to be dull beaureucratic stuff. Thor looked almost tempted, but apparently his budding friendship with Li necessitates 'the nourishing water of my continued attention', and Natasha just gave Clint a long stare before disappearing in the direction of a public bath.

'You ever get stationed in the Pacific?' he asks when they're a few hundred yards from the hotel.

Cap stares at the passers-by, and Clint has to admit that even for a New York-based 21st century native, Japanese fashions run to the downright bizarre.

'No,' Cap drags his gaze away from a girl mincing along on six-inch platforms and gives Clint a half smile. 'We had a few furloughs in Paris, but I was pretty much all Hydra all the time. I only really saw a few months of combat before...'

He trails off, and Clint puts a hesitant hand on Cap's arm. 'You wanna find somewhere quiet?'

'No,' Cap smiles at him properly. 'Let's see if we can find something Tony's never seen before.'

Clint puts his blankest mission face on. 'You want to trawl brothels for fetishist hookers?'

Cap roars with laughter and drags Clint towards a laneway.

****

It takes about an hour (and somewhere around three hundred photos with grinning Japanese people) to work up a serious appetite, so Clint starts casting around for somewhere to eat. There's a covered cart a few shopfronts away, so he heads towards it, digging out some money. There're seats, so Clint slides into one and makes some 'food please' gestures to the guy behind the counter. Thirty seconds later, he's ready to ditch Tony and run away with this bowl of noodles.

'Oh my god,' he groans at Cap, shovelling another load of noodles into his mouth. 'You've _got_ to try this!'

He gestures at Cap, mostly with his shoulders and eyes since he isn't willing to put the chopsticks or bowl down even for a minute, and the chef slides a matching bowl across.

Clint watches long enough to see the blissful expression settle on Cap's face, but hey. He's got his own orgasmic bowl of noodle soup to concentrate on right now.

Hopeful eyes get him a second bowl, this time with a different assortment of not-noodles heaped on top. If anything it's even better. Even the vegetables taste good, Clint thinks with a head shake.

He and Cap work through three bowls apiece, and Clint pulls a few bills with way too many zeros on them out. The chef tries to hand them back, but Clint just holds his hands up, grinning and pointing at the pile of dirty bowls. Tony gave him a wad of cash thicker than the phone book, and the guy deserves a helluva tip for that meal.

' _Arigatou gozaimasu_ ,' he says, mangling the pronunciation, but meaning every mispronounced syllable. He bows a few times, mirrored by the chef and Cap, then they head towards the water.

The bay glitters in an almost painful display of clear water and blue skies. Clint lets Cap lead him along the water's edge and up a ferocious incline to a lookout, and they stay there until the light starts fading, comfortably silent and just staring at the view.

'We'd better be getting back,' Clint says at seven. 'Tony said they'd be able to duck out earlier today.'

He and Cap manage to find the hotel with only a handful of wrong turns, and Tony's bright grin when he walks in is the capper to a pretty great day.

****

When he comes out of the shower, Clint finds Tony lounging on the bed with a seriously expensive-looking kimono spread across the quilt.

Clint whistles, leaning over to feel the material. It's soft as _clouds_. 'How much did you wind up spending on this?'

Tony shrugs. ' _Nihyakuman-en_ ,' he grins.

'That sounds like it probably has a lot of zeros in it,' Clint folds his arms. 'You're sure you wanna get it all grotty?'

'Oh,' Tony rolls to his feet, grabbing the kimono and advancing. 'I'm sure.'

Clint drops his towel and lets Tony drape the kimono on him. There's enough reflection in the windows that he can see the effect, and he likes it.

'This is awesome,' he swishes the material forward and back a few times. 'Congratulate your gopher, Tony. And be prepared for an epic cleaning bill; I'm keeping this.'

Tony just trips him onto the bed and smirks down at the hopeless tangle Clint's in. 'Well if it isn't my lucky day.'

'Why sir,' Clint flutters his eyes, suppressing a smirk himself. 'Whatever do you mean?'

He speads his legs as Tony crawls onto the bed, lolling back against the mattress as Tony drags his teeth along Clint's inner thigh, chasing his mouth with his fingers. He let Clint push his head towards his straining cock, licking a stripe up the underside and setting his palms against Clint's knees to push his legs wider.

'Fuck, _Tony_...' Clint gasped when Tony slid two slicked fingers into him. 'Give it to me!'

Tony dragged out the preparations, hot breath teasing Clint's cock and irregular licks kicking Clint into overdrive. When he finally pulled back, Clint locks his ankles behind Tony's back, pulling him forward as he slides inside.

Tony groans Clint's name into the side of his neck as they adjust before pulling back to stare down at Clint, acres of silk pooled around him. The first thrust is teeth-rattlingly strong, and Clint doesn't try to muffle his cries as Tony fucks him.

Tony grins at Clint's enthusiastic encouragements, changing his angle slightly to the one he knows will drive Clint wild. It's over for Clint within four thrusts, shooting his cum over his belly and all over the kimono. He hitches his hips up, hooking a knee over Tony's shoulder to let him really pound away, and Tony's hips stutter, cock pulsing inside Clint.

He collapses on top of Clint, breathing hard as he slips out. Clint lets his fingers run through Tony's hair, mussing it into sweaty spikes, smoothing it down and remussing it.

'So,' Clint says a half hour later, nuzzling against Tony's throat. 'Your turn tomorrow?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Arigatou gozaimasu_ is, of course 'Thank you very much'
> 
>  
> 
> _Nihyakuman-en_ is around USD$18,000. Peanuts to Tony ^_~


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again, all thanks to Aer's super prompting magicalness ^_^
> 
> This one's a little more action-y than previous chapters, but nothing that should be disturbing. Let me know if there's anything that needs to be flagged, and I'll get right on it.
> 
> EDIT: counting FAIL on my part, thanks to rosaleendhu for pointing it out

They've hardly been on the Helicarrier for half an hour when Fury and Hill appear on either side of Clint, grim-faced and demanding his presence. Clint rolls his eyes at Tony and lets them herd him into the closest Eyes Only briefing room.

'Who is it this time?' Clint asks as soon as the security panel flashes green.

Fury slides a security camera still out of his jacket, setting it on the table and stepping back. Clint looks down, and 'I could have _sworn_ I already shot that man,' he says, keeping his tone flat.

'Apparently Hydra has an excellent trauma surgeon,' Fury's nostrils flare. 'There's a transport waiting for you on deck; your gear is being transferred now.'

'Widow riding along?' Clint asks, trying to get a clue about his destination from the picture. A city with cobblestones is all he can determine. Great: Europe most likely.

'Just you and the pilot on this one,' Hill says when Fury glances towards her. 'Briefing and dossier are waiting on board.'

Yay, Clint thinks. Plenty to read on the way. 'Sirs.'

He strides out as soon as Hill disengages the door, double-timing it up to the deck. He's still got his Avengers comms in, so he buzzes Tony.

'Off already?' Tony's voice is a little disappointed, but accepting. 'How long?'

Clint shrugs, pausing beside a fire cupboard. 'Maybe a week? I'll be off-comms the whole time, so keep yourself out of trouble.'

Tony gives the verbal equivalent of rolling eyes. 'Whatever. I'm throwing a party and inviting Maxim's covergirls _and_ the Playboy centrefolds.'

'Awesome,' Clint grins. 'Take lots of pictures. See you in a week.'

He digs the earbud out, setting it in its case. He holds it out behind him, and Fury takes it.

'Something else, sir?' Clint turns to look at his boss.

'Keep an eye out for AIM,' Fury growls. 'We've heard rumblings they've started turning up again, and a Hydra-AIM team-up is the last thing we need.'

Clint does a final check for equipment to hand over, and nods. 'Agreed, sir.'

****

The Hydra agent goes down permanently this time, Clint putting a second bullet through the man's eye socket to make absolutely sure. For a moment, there seems to be a greenish-gold flicker in his peripheral vision, but when he swings the rifle around, all he can see is a pissy-looking pigeon.

Clint breaks the rifle down, heading down the stairs a minute later to rendezvous with the pilot. He can't shake the feeling of being watched, even though he doubles back through London's abysmally-crowded Underground and ducks in through the doors just as a train pulls away.

He's twenty minutes into the red zone before he makes it to the air strip, and he finally puts the creepy feeling down to London's abusive love affair with CCTV.

The flight back, he spends mostly asleep, drooling into the webbing and thinking about how to drag Tony out of his man cave when he gets home.

He jumps down from the hold to the deck and is immediately whisked away to report. Fury's got another dossier on the table when Clint comes in, and Clint sighs.

'Another? Is it Christmas?' Fury's usually pretty good about spreading the wet work across his agents, giving everyone some down time. Sometimes, however, there's a particularly sensitive or difficult target, and only the best will do. It used to be almost fun back when Phil had been his handler. Clint felt like James Bond, or Ilya Kuryakin, running around the world and trading quips with Phil.

Clint's desktop background had been the photo of Phil's face the first time Clint called him Pussy Galore for a long time.

'Those rumblings I mentioned?' Fury sets his hands flat on the table, either side of the file. 'Have gone Krakatoa. I've got Widow chasing a cadre of AIM loonies through Kentucky, and I need you to take out their Hydra contacts lurking in Soledad.'

'Tropical,' Clint picks the dossier up and flicks through. 'Thank you, sir. Been meaning to work on my tan.'

'Chopper's refuelling now,' Fury frowns, and Clint knows he doesn't like sending agents out with no layover.

'Can't be helped sometimes,' he observes. 'Stark onboard somewhere?'

'He's at SI headquarters,' Fury grimaces and stands up. 'Use the commstation behind you. Wheels-up in thirty.'

He's gone in a swirl of black leather, door swooshing closed behind him. Clint glances down at the file and sighs. Six targets, and Hydra agents don't make things easy by staying together. Goodbye another two weeks, he thinks, and places the call.

'I can and will set every alarm on your flying monstrosity to be the greatest hits of Justin Bieber,' Tony snaps when he picks up. 'Don't think for a minute that I'm scared of you, Fury-'

'Wouldn't dream of it, sugar-buns,' Clint grins. 'But I'm pretty sure Hill's a secret Belieber, so maybe switch that to Vengaboys?'

'Clint,' and if Clint goes a little soft inside at the warmth in Tony's voice, well. It's only on the inside. 'I laid in supplies when Fury gave me your ETA; hey, you're not allergic to-'

'Sorry, Tony,' Clint sighs. 'This is just a pit stop. More action than a Tijuana happy hour, me.'

Tony goes quiet; Clint can hear him tapping a pencil (or more likely a stylus) against something. 'How long?' he asks eventually.

'Two weeks minimum,' Clint taps the file against his leg. 'I'm sorry. I don't even have time to come by; Fury's shuttling me out in ten minutes.'

'All right,' Tony taps whatever it is a few more times. 'Be safe. Any requests for redesigns, since I'll just be making time with the widow palm?'

Clint laughs. 'If you could make those knockout canisters have a more targeted spray, that'd be useful, but that's just tweaking. I'll be back as soon as I can.'

Tony makes a sort of farewell noise, and the line goes dead. Clint rolls his eyes, and heads back up to the deck.

Man, he hates back-to-back missions.

****

Clint is filthy, sweaty and really annoyed by the time he chases the last of the Hydra goons down. The bastard managed to lead Clint all the way down to Buenaventura, and Clint has had it up to _here_ with mosquitoes and busted Jeeps.

He's almost tempted to put another round through the guy for being such a pain, but it's already kinda stinky in the alley, and Clint really doesn't want to keep himself from a cold beer and a shower any longer than he has to.

He limps to the closest house in a quiet street which looks reasonably clean and slips around the back to tap on a window. A skinny woman doing the dishes looks up, taking a healthy step back at Clint's appearance.

'No, I'm not going to hurt you,' he spreads his hands, speaking in slow and careful Spanish. 'But can I pay you two hundred American dollars to use your bathroom?'

He holds up ten twenties, fanned out and pushed towards her. He keeps his hands visible as she gives him a once-over, smiling as encouragingly as he knows how.

'Two hundred and fifty,' she says, and Clint shrugs. 'OK. Come to the back door. Are you being followed?'

'No ma'am,' Clint limps around as directed, frowning at another greenish gold flash when he turns away. There's nothing there when he checks, but he makes a note to check on possible causes. The _last_ thing he needs is a brain tumour or a psychotic break.

The woman holds her hand out for the money before letting him inside, so Clint lets her take it. She shows him the bathroom, throwing a spare shirt in without making Clint renegotiate. He cleans himself up as best as he can in the sink, checking on his bruises and the scabbing line where one of the other goons had gotten lucky with a switch blade.

Nothing too bad, though he winces when he mops at the tacky blood drying over a particularly nasty bruise.

It's hot enough that he's got fresh sweat springing up as soon as he puts the shirt on, but at least he's clean now. The woman's standing by the back door when he comes out, arms folded and a tense expression on.

'Thank you,' Clint says, handing over another fifty dollars. 'Is there a bus nearby?'

Her mouth turns down, but she gives him directions through the back streets, and Clint's pretty sure he's clear. The bus is supposed to leave in two hours, which means he has about three to kill. What he wouldn't give to have brought a gameboy.

****

Fury debriefs him in record time, pretty much just relieving Clint of his surviving weaponry and SHIELD-supplied papers before shooing him out the door. He's probably supposed to swing by medical, let some cranky nurse hose him down with iodine, but Clint's in a bit of a hurry to get off the Helicarrier. He's a little paranoid, maybe, that Fury will suddenly remember a Communist dictator he needs eliminated by breakfast.

When he reaches the hangar, full of half-baked plans to hijack a chopper to get him to Manhattan, Tony's already there in his shiny flying suit.

'Going my way, soldier?' Clint leans against a case full of engine parts and props his foot up.

Tony's visor slides back to let Tony's grin exert its full force. 'Have a good time down South, dear?'

'Fabulous,' Clint pushes off the crate, too tired to do more than brush his lips against Tony's. 'You here to give me a lift home?'

'Sure am, sweetheart,' Tony's arms come up to settle Clint against the suit. 'Hang on.'

Tony flies them back to the Tower, being a lot more careful than usual. Clint's not going to complain, though.

He feels like he could sleep for a week.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some cameos from a few Marvel villains here; should be easily understood/ignorable if you aren't familiar

Of course, a week would be asking too much. Clint's woken by the alarm at seven the next morning, and is half dressed in his uniform before his eyes are fully open.

What with Thor in Asgard trying to rehabilitate his brother, and Natasha taking a yoga retreat with Bruce after shredding the AIM gang she'd been sent after, it's just Clint and Tony to respond to the call.

There's some sort of rampage going on through Central Park's morning run crowd, and it's only luck that Cap was there to sound the alarm before any real damage was done. Clint gets Tony to drop him into the upper branches of a tree, flicking his bow open and fingering the cannister selection controls while he scans for the danger.

' _Status, Cap_ ,' Tony's voice sounds over the comms.

Clint sees him just before he responds, trading punches with a guy who seems to be twice as big as Thor.

' _He just turned up_ ,' Cap grunts, ducking a massive fist and slamming his own into the guy's kidney with little discernible effect. ' _Seems impervious to physical attacks. You try, Iron Man_.'

Clint notches a knockout arrow, watching as Tony sweeps down to blast the guy point blank with his repulsors. The guy roars, and goes down to a triumphant whoop from Tony. It doesn't last, though. The guy slings a punch towards Tony, who blasts easily out of range. Clint looses his arrow, grinning as Tony's redesigned delivery system squirts a hefty dose of ketamine right into the guy's open mouth.

Cap leaps forward as he staggers, delivering a heavy double-handed blow to the back of the guy's head, and that's it. He slumps to the ground and doesn't move.

Clint does a sweep of the park, but there's nothing else around. He collapses his bow and starts swinging down, turning a sommersault every few branches just for fun. He's kind of caffeine-deprived and not entirely awake, so he's not sure if the _really bright_ gold flash is just the sunlight through the leaves or if it's whatever's been haunting him just after every mission lately.

He fucks up his landing, knee locking instead of bending and wow, that's not a fun sensation. He limps over to Tony, cracking open one of the containment arrows to throw the contents over the downed thug.

Cap's calling SHIELD for a retrieval team, so Clint leans heavily against Tony, letting a jaw-cracking yawn escape.

'You OK?' Tony flips his visor up, frowning down at Clint as his arm snakes around to help support him.

'Fine,' Clint takes his weight off his sore leg. 'Just wrenched my knee. Need to ice it for an hour or so. And go back to sleep.'

He's vaguely aware of Tony telling Cap that he's taking Clint home, then the wind chill and rush of the flight. He rouses long enough to limp from the landing pad to the bedroom and collapses on the bed.

He dozes for a few hours, and he's relieved that his knee is just sore when he rolls out of bed and heads to the kitchen. Tony's lounging against the bench, drinking what's probably his fifth cup of the day.

'How's the leg?' Tony puts his mug down, herding Clint towards a chair and pouring him a mug of coffee.

'Better,' Clint brushes a kiss against Tony's lips. 'I'll just need to strap it for a few days. Who was that guy, anyway?'

'Called himself Piledriver,' Tony shrugs. 'Didn't have too much to say for himself.'

They stay leaning comfortably against each other for twenty minutes or so, and Tony works his way through another two mugs of coffee. Clint's just about to suggest doing something interesting when his SHIELD communicator goes off.

'Barton,' he answers, letting his hand drift down the back of Tony's pants.

'Get your gear, Hawkeye,' Hill barks, a little louder than she really needs to. 'Briefing in forty-five.'

'No fucking way,' Tony growls. 'He's injured. Find someone else.'

Hill snorts. 'Muzzle your boyfriend, Barton. It's Modok.'

'Shit,' Clint pushes Tony away. 'I'll be on the helipad in ten, sir.'

He swings by his room to dig out his knee brace and drags his uniform back on. Tony leans against the doorway, arms folded.

'Modok's bad?' he says, voice neutral.

'Modok's unknown,' Clint replies, sitting on the bed to drag his boots on. 'Big name in AIM, but we've never had a confirmed sighting. Could be a committee, code name, some sort of weapon. If Modok's turned up, I have to go.'

'The Avengers could-' Tony starts, moving like he's going to go suit up, and Clint shakes his head.

'You're not exactly stealthy,' he grins at Tony, thinking about how much Tony has done to make up for what his company used to do. He _can't_ let Tony be any part of an assassination. He _won't_. 'I'll have plenty of backup, I'll stay low, and I'll be back soon.'

He presses Tony against the doorframe as he heads past, taking his time mapping out Tony's mouth, putting everything he feels into the kiss before pulling back with a few final pecks. Clint smiles, and heads back to work.

****

Modok, it turns out, is a fucking insane living computer cased in a hideous and damn near indestructable mutant frame. Clint runs, dodging yellow HAZMAT-suited lunatics and _motherfucking eye lasers_ , swearing nonstop as Modok's robot voice shouts about itself in the third person.

'That all you got, moon face?' Clint yells when the crazy pauses for breath. He's tried gas, tranquiliser, containment and taser arrows to no avail, so he flicks around to an explosive cap. Thinks about it for a moment, and adds another two caps to the shaft.

'I am SCIENCE!' Modok screams, rushing towards Clint. Clint lets fly, and hey! Explosion in the face gets the freaky thing retreating, batting creepy tiny hands at its even creepier gigantic face. Another round of explosives (the flare looking strangely green for a moment) drive it through an arch and into...

Fuck everything. Into an escape pod.

Clint stares at the afterburners for a minute, chest heaving and knee on fire, before he turns to start rounding up the remaining AIM idiots.

Fury won't be happy.

****

Fury's not ecstatic, but it turns out _Tony's_ spitting chips. When Clint limps off the transport, leaning heavily on one of the agents who'd come along, Tony is in the middle of an epic shitfit in Fury's office. The subject of which seems to be Clint.

'Uh, we can go depose a warlord if you're busy, sir,' Clint says when there's a pause of two seconds in Tony's rant. 'Come back later?'

The expression on Tony's face when he turns and sees Clint makes Clint wish he'd tried to clean himself up a little before reporting in. He's filthy, his uniform's torn and bloody (almost exclusively Not Clint's Blood, though!), and he'd had to tie part of one of those stupid yellow suits around his knee to keep it steady. All in all, not an advertisment for SHIELD success.

'I'm taking him to medical,' Tony snarls at Fury. 'And then we're going away for two weeks. Get your report from one of the baby agents.'

Fury, to Clint's unending shock, just nods. Tony drags Clint to medical, as threatened, and spends the entire twenty minute examination tapping his foot and scowling at the ceiling.

'You can't just take me off rotation,' Clint tells him when the doctor has stomped off to poke at some _actually injured_ patients. 'I'm an agent of SHIELD before I'm an Avenger, Tony.'

Tony stares at him for a long time. 'How many weeks of vacation do you have banked up?'

Clint shrugs. 'Dunno. Maybe twelve? Phil was the one who kept track of that shit.'

'There's been research,' Tony's mouth twists in something resembling a smile. 'That regular vacations are necessary for _office workers_ to keep performing at peak efficiency. How much more important for someone with a life-and-death job, hmm?'

Clint rolls his eyes, but Tony just barrels on.

'In Australia they actually _force_ people with more than eight weeks vacation time to take it,' he puts his hand on Clint's injured knee, touch so gentle Clint can hardly feel it. 'Fury OK'd it, and you need a break. Where shall we go?'

Clint gives up. 'I don't know. Where _don't_ you speak the local language?'

****

'Are you actually from Asgard?' Clint demands after Tony's spent ten minutes chatting up the concierge. 'I give up. Tony Stark speaks ALL the languages.'

Tony grins over his shoulder at Clint. ' _Voulez vous coucher avec moi çe soir_?'

'Even _I_ know that one,' Clint lets himself grin. 'Hmm... _Non, je ne veux pas coucher avec toi_.'

Tony clutches at the arc reactor, staggering an exaggerated step back. ' _Mon coeur_! I'll have to go back to Paris and throw myself in the Seine, I hope you realise.'

'I wouldn't,' Clint slips his arms around Tony's waist and leans his forehead against Tony's. 'It's pretty filthy. Never know what you'll catch. Maybe you'll be able to persuade me with a little effort.'

'I suppose I can stand to make a little effort,' Tony breathes. 'Just for you.'

'Such a gentleman,' Clint laughs, and steps back to let the bellboy lead them to the suite.

****

Much as he'd like to protest otherwise, Clint's not really up to much for the first few days. Tony was right, though Clint will go to his _grave_ before he tells him so. Clint had gotten a little too dented and bruised in too short a time. A vacation in Nice is actually just what he needed.

So he lets Tony laze around in bed with him, murmuring filthy French and doing just enough to get the sheets tangled and a little damp.

By the fourth day, though, Clint's feeling a little stir crazy, so he drags Tony out to the beach where they spend a very enjoyable day leering at beautiful women and mucking about in the shallows. Of course, Tony's Tony so photographers turn up, but they stay far enough back that they're almost unnoticable.

Except for one, who catches Clint's eye because the glint of light on her hair is the same flash of gold that's been chasing him. When he squints at her, she grins, tossing a green scarf over her shoulder like she thinks she's Grace Kelly or something, and then vanishes.

'Fuck,' Clint does an automatic check for her, one hand herding Tony behind him while he scans the beach.

'What is it?' Tony's fidgiting with his bracelets; he hasn't called the armour yet, but he's ready to.

'I think we need to speak to Thor,' Clint says grimly, the light playful day suddenly a lot darker.

****

Clint secures the hotel suite as well as possible while Tony sets up a video chat.

'Friends!' Thor booms out the laptop speakers, somehow seeming too large for the screen. 'How goes your respite?'

'Great, buddy,' Tony says, moving aside to let Clint sit next to him. 'But we might have a problem.'

Clint takes a deep breath, and tells Thor about the flashes of green and gold and the photographer who disappeared. Thor scowls at the screen.

'Was she of great beauty?'

'Sure, I suppose,' Clint shrugs. 'I only saw her for a second, and she was a hundred and fifty yards away.'

'My brother warned us,' Thor mutters. 'Amora has golden tresses and habitually wears green, I believe in some form of tribute to my brother.'

'So I'm being stalked by a witch from another dimension,' Clint clarifies, because it's always good to be told you aren't going crazy.

Thor nods, and Mjolnir twirls past his camera, slapping into his palm. 'I shall return to Asgard to beg my brother's assistance. Be on your guard, my friends.'

Hooray, Clint thinks. Bring _Loki_ back to Earth and expect him to help us. Totally the bestiest plan ever.

Thor ends the call, and Tony sits back, rubbing his hands over his face.

'We'd better head back,' Clint says when Tony's been quiet for too long. 'Get Natasha to go fiund that Strange guy again.'

'You're still not doing any of Fury's solo bullshit for a month,' Tony pulls his phone out to tell the pilot to get the plane ready. 'Just grab what you need; I'll have someone pack and forward everything else.'

Clint rolls his eyes. 'You're stupid-rich.'

'Come on, bird boy,' Tony grabs Clint's hand, and drags him out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Voulez vou coucher avec moi, ce soir _is the line from Lady Marmalade, and a ridiculously formal way of propositioning someone; _Je ne pas coucher avec toi... _is 'I don't wanna sleep with you tonight'; _mon coeur _is 'my heart'______
> 
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> 
> ...though, that said, the last time I took French was over ten years ago, so if anyone wants to chime in with corrections, more than welcome (except for the Lady Marmalade line; Tony's teasing!)
> 
> EDIT: Aaaand thanks to daphne, Clint's response has been whammied into shape; thanks hon ^_^ 
> 
> SOOOOO happy with the enthusiastic response; thank you all so much for the encouragement and please feel free to sling prompts/requests/etc my way or at my LJ meh_guh.livejournal.com if you prefer that to comments section here ^_^
> 
> <3 <3 <3


	7. Chapter 7

To Clint's surprised relief, Thor came back alone, saying that Odin had vetoed the idea of bringing Loki back.

'I truly believe my brother has repented,' Thor was saying for the four hundredth time. 'He has expressed great sorrow at the harm he caused.'

'Yeah, but they call him Liesmith for a reason,' Tony replies, his hand a comforting weight on Clint's knee under the table. 'Let him consult long-distance for a while before you campaign too hard to let him run free.'

'Baby steps,' Clint puts in with a grin; he's been tense all week at the idea of Loki being within a light year of him, and the rush of relief is almost unbearable.

Thor's face falls, leaving him looking like the last golden retriever in the shop. A golden retriever that's convinced he's going to be sent to the knackers if no one takes pity on him. Clint almost feels like throwing a ball for him.

'Buck up, buddy,' Tony says, flicking something at the screen that makes it light up like Christmas. 'We've still got Natasha's cranky magician to try before Fury'll even consider letting Loki back.'

Clint studies the picture of Stephen Strange Tony's just put up. Man looks like a grade A bitch; Clint's favourite type just like Natasha said.

'So on a scale of one to Tony, exactly _how _bitchy was he?' Clint asks Natasha as she starts cleaning her nails with a Bowie knife.__

'Tony squared,' Natasha says before Tony can get out more than a token protest. 'Alternate universe evil Tony. Bitchier than Von Doom when Richards is too busy to pay attention to him.'

'Awesome,' Clint grins. 'Dibs on being the bodyguard for whoever winds up chasing him up.'

'Onetwothree not it!' Tony shouts, slamming his hand on the table for emphasis. 'I _hate _magic.'__

Obviously Cap's spent way too much time around them, because all he says is 'OK. Clint with me, Widow's in charge until we get back.'

'Aw, _man _,' Tony groans. 'Fine. I'll be in my lab blasting through the walls of science as we know it.'__

****

If anything, Natasha understated Strange's bitchiness. Clint's a little in awe, and a little fearful of Cap's next dental exam.

'Mister Strange,' Cap grinds out, a vein pulsing in his temple.

'Doctor,' Strange corrects, with an overblown glottal stop in the middle. He doesn't even look up from whatever the hell it is he's reading.

'Doctor,' Cap repeats, and holy balls! The guy's so bitchy _Cap's _getting snarky! 'Would you please listen to our request before you dismiss it out of hand?'__

'You want me to waste huge amounts of my time and energy to flush out an enemy who will reveal herself in due course,' Strange pauses to turn a page and actually looks up this time. 'I have many more important duties than assisting _superheroes _with their playground tiffs.'__

'Wow,' Clint spins an arrow shaft around his hand idly. 'You're _really _invested in not making friends, huh?'__

Strange fixes a blank and frankly unsettling stare on him. 'I have no time for fripperies. If I agree to assist in taking Amora down, will you leave me be?'

'How will we contact you to call you in?' Cap asks, presumably thinking about the incredible number of treasure hunt clues they'd had to solve to find Strange's house. The trek through the sewers had been particularly awesome.

'I shall know,' Strange says offhand. 'When the final battle comes, I will be there.'

'Awesome,' Clint says, grabbing Cap's elbow and dragging him out. 'Don't be a stranger.'

'Hilarious,' Strange lifts an eyebrow at Clint before the door slams, leaving Clint and Cap on the stoop.

'Well, _that _went well,' Clint rolls his eyes, skipping down the steps. 'You wanna get shawerma on the way back?'__

Cap heaves a sigh and nods. 'Sure.'

****

'Somebody wanna tell me why we haven't contracted out for a better design for the prison?' Tony asks as he sweeps past Piledriver, blasting his repulsors. 'I mean, I'm pretty sure I could bang out something ten times as secure over the weekend; just saying.'

'No one's fucking stopping you!' Fury roars, shifting his rocket launcher to the other shoulder. 'And get your shiny metal arse out of the way!'

Clint laughs as Tony flicks a casual salute and takes off vertically, letting Piledriver take the full blast of the rocket in the crotch.

'Nice aim, sir,' he chuckles, drawing a taser arrow and tracking the big goombah with the ball and chain. He lets fly, only noticing the green and gold flash beside him when the string goes slack. He whirls around, whipping out at face height with his bow, but the woman who'd appeared just twitches a finger and his bow shatters in his hands.

'Fuck,' he backs up to the edge of the building. 'We've got Asgardian contact up here!'

'Hush,' Amora says, spreading her hands and smirking. 'I think we'd better take this somewhere a little quieter, don't you think?'

The last thing Clint hears before he loses conciousness is Tony screaming his name.

****

'He's waking up.'

Clint jerks when someone throws cold water over him. He shakes like a dog, testing his restraints before glaring up at her. The knots are tight, but nothing compared to Natasha's.

'Hello darling,' Amora aims a nasty smile at him. 'Yes. You'll do nicely.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Clint spits, aiming for Amora's foot but falling short. 'Let me guess: your boyfriend used me, so I must be easy to flip. You're, what? Out for revenge?'

'Why would I bother avenging Loki?' Amora grins. 'He wouldn't thank me for it. No, I want his feckless brother's help in freeing him. You're right about your use, though.'

'Whoo,' Clint would twirl an unimpressed finger if his hands were free. 'Get on with it, then. Haven't got all day.'

Amora's fingers wriggle and Clint is hauled to his feet by an invisible force. She doesn't seem to notice the headway he's making with the knots, though, so he keeps talking.

'What is _with _you loonies?' he adds a foot-stamp just for flourish. 'Surely you've invented board games or tournaments. Can't you just fuck off and leave us in peace?'__

'Why,' she blinks, all mock-surprise and huge green eyes. 'You _are _our 'board games', little mortal. We made you for our entertainment.'__

'Uh-huh,' Clint rolls his eyes, carefully keeping his hands behind his back, looping the kind of stupidly-long rope around his hand. 'Yeah, I'm sure you did. You look real creative, lady. I'm absolutely going to believe you're really a god; oh no, you shattered my world view. Come _on _.'__

She shrugs, turning to a huge guy in the corner. 'Leave.'

Clint watches him walk out, notes the way the door is not locked with great relief. When he's gone, heavy footsteps receding down a corridor, Amora steps close.

'Now,' she says, all girlish teasing gone and replaced by blank efficiency. 'We shall begin.'

'Or not,' Clint replies and stabs her with a taser cartridge.

She doesn't even get time to scream, dropping to the floor and jerking as Clint stuffs one of his wrist guards into her mouth, securing it with the rope before yanking her hands behind her back to wrap the ends around her hands. _His _knots have stood the test of both Natasha and Tony, though in rather different circumstances, so unless she has any Asgardian cheat codes, she's secure for the moment.__

She glares up at him when he's done, but she doesn't just dissolve the ropes or anything so Clint gives a small inner cheer for Team Human. He crouches again to give her a rough search, but she's not even carrying a lozenge or a key.

Best outcome here would be to drag her back to Thor, but without knowing the Avengers are incoming, he can't really take the risk of dragging a hostile through her own base alone. Better to go and find a comms centre and call them in.

He drags Amora into the blind corner behind the door, grins at her, and slips out.

****

Amora's 'base' turned out to be a converted warehouse that seemed to have done some time as a rave, if the black lights and DJ booth were anything to go by.

There wasn't even a landline phone, just a few dozen goombahs shuffling around moving big wooden crates and breathing through their mouths.

Clint spent a few minutes cataloguing the layout, the number and faces of the henchmen, the labels on the crates. Not that he really thought Amora was going to take over the world with 'number 4 socket wrenches' or 'industrial solvent', but maybe Tony or Bruce would have a better idea.

He briefly considers trying to open a crate, but there are just too many men, and every second he waits is another second Amora has to untie herself or be discovered.

With one last glace around, Clint crawls towards the empty office and its filthy, but well-greased and alarm-system lacking, window.

Tony's probably hacking satellites to search for him, in between screaming matches with Fury, Clint grins. He's going to have to do a lot of fast talking when he gets home to stop his boyfriend from Lo Jacking him.


	8. Chapter 8

Surprising to absolutely no one, Tony's first reaction when Clint saunters back onto the Helicarrier is to slam him against the wall and kiss the hell out of him.

Also unsurprising, his second is to yell for twenty minutes nonstop.

When he finally runs out of steam, Clint looks around the Avengers' faces to find them nodding.

'What he said,' Cap says, and that's it. Clint can't stop the hysterical laugh.

Tony leans over Clint and thunks his head against the wall. 'I hate everything.'

'If you're quite finished with your tantrum,' Fury says, arms folded and his blankest glare in place. 'We need to debrief Agent Barton.'

Clint pats Tony's back, trying not to smile at the way Tony relaxes minutely against him. 'I think they need to know too, sir.'

'Fine,' Fury sighs. 'But I'm not debriefing you while you're snuggling with your boyfriend.'

****

The debrief is short but loud, and Thor's insistence that Loki can help becomes an increasingly-bitter point of contention between him and the team. Cap, grim faced and quiet, keeps shaking his head while Natasha glares. Tony gets into a shouting match with Thor before Clint shoves him back into his chair.

'I think we might have to try,' Clint says, ruthlessly suppressing his reflexive no. 'It looked like they were gearing up for something, and Strange refused to help. Loki might be the only one who can tell us what she's up to before it all goes to hell.'

Tony's face shuts down, and Clint knows it's concern for him making Tony so adamant on this point. Later he'll let himself get gooey and ridiculous over Tony, but this is business.

'Thor says he can control Loki,' Clint says, raising his eyebrows at Thor for confirmation. 'It's worth considering, at least.'

Fury's not happy; or, Clint corrects himself Not Happy, but he's the most pragmatic man Clint's ever met.

'We'll need assurances,' Fury says, steam rolling over Tony's squawk. 'And I'm not saying yes.'

'I shall return to Asgard at once,' Thor shoots a kicked-dog look around at the team as he stands up. 'My brother has wronged you sorely, but he is not as he was then. I promise you, he will be a worthy ally.'

Clint shares a sceptical, resigned glance with Natasha, but no one tries to complain when Thor marches out, calling to Heimdall.

****

'You don't have to cave to Fury-'

'Tony,' Clint takes Tony by the elbow and pulls him back into the briefing room. 'I'm not going to turn my back on Loki, but he's the best shot we have at bringing Amora down with the fewest problems. It means a lot to me that you're trying to protect me, but I can handle it.'

'Hey,' Tony scoffs. 'Maybe it's _me _who has issues with the Prince of Asshole Manoeuvres.'__

__Clint grins, brushing a kiss across Tony's knuckles. 'Nice try. It'll be fine, so long as he doesn't pull another psycho freakout.'_ _

__Tony pulls a complicated face, then sighs. 'All right. But the first twitch he makes towards you, he's getting a missile to the back of the head. One of the tank-busting ones.'_ _

__'Agreed,' Clint laughs into Tony's mouth and lets himself get distracted for ten minutes._ _

__****_ _

__The alarm blares through the tower at two o'clock the next afternoon, interrupting the fortnightly Battle of the Bluray._ _

__'Avengers,' Cap shouts, dropping Clint reasonably gently before running for the door. 'Assemble!'_ _

__It's Hydra when they get to one of Tony's subsidiary labs over in Queens. Neo-Nazi fuckers holding ten researchers and techs and the fucking water cooler guy hostage in the secure lab in the middle of the building. Twenty more of the assholes are running around the shiny white glass-and-marble open plan reception, shouting not quite loud enough for Clint to understand._ _

__'You know,' Clint says when Tony's dropped him on top of a warehouse with a clear line of sight through the whole of the shiny glass palace. 'These guys must offer _amazing _insurance. I can't see any other way they'd get this many mooks to go along with these frankly sub-par plans.'___ _

____He lets a few explosive rounds off to herd the straggling idiots towards Natasha as Tony drops though the skylight and scatters the Hydra goons like bowling pins. He punches through the security door, tiny missiles winging towards the hostage-takers, and five seconds later Cap's hustling the hostages towards SHIELD._ _ _ _

____A cut and dried, textbook fight until the air goes wobbly and the sound from outside SHIELD's cordon gets cut off._ _ _ _

____'The fuck...?' Tony twists, sending a repulsor blast at a slow learner's back. 'What's going-'_ _ _ _

____Clint can't answer him, because out of nowhere, there's suddenly an army of AIM HAZMAT suits, brand new pop guns sending fluorescent blue shots at Clint's perch. He dives off the roof, landing shoulder-first on a fire escape that hasn't seen much maintenance recently if the way it peels off the building and crashes to the ground is any indication._ _ _ _

____He has to take a few seconds, hears the confused sounds of battle worsened by the weird echo caused by whatever AIM used to cut the Avengers off from SHIELD._ _ _ _

____Clint lies still until a yellow shape moves into his line of sight, stabbing up with a taser cap when it leans over him and rolling away, already sending arrows at another three soldiers._ _ _ _

____He can't spare the attention to look, but he's been working with Natasha for ten years so he knows she's using her thighs to choke one guy while shooting another three or something else terrifyingly hot. She doesn't need any assistance._ _ _ _

____Cap's shield goes winging past, cracking a couple of skulls before rebounding off the corner of the warehouse and back into Cap's hand._ _ _ _

____'Hawkeye,' he snaps between punches. 'You right?'_ _ _ _

____'Great, Cap,' he responds, sending a scattering of knockout canisters at a gang of AIM losers aiming a cannon at Tony. 'Incoming, five o'clock!'_ _ _ _

____He's not too worried; this was unexpected and a fucking nightmare of a team-up, but nothing they can't handle._ _ _ _

____Or it _was _until the Hydra soldier he'd launched a taser cap at vanished in a wavy shimmer, and he realised that Amora was here too.___ _ _ _

______****_ _ _ _ _ _

______It took a full hour for Fury to break through the barrier, by which time even Cap was sweating and shaking, covered in smoke and his uniform torn._ _ _ _ _ _

______Clint fell back as the SHIELD TAC team swarmed past him, rubbing his eyes clear and breathing hard. Natasha was perched in one of the Range Rovers, letting an EMT swipe an alcohol swab over a ragged slice in her arm._ _ _ _ _ _

______He could hear Hulk screaming with rage as he punched at enemies only for Amora to keep teleporting them away, and suddenly realised he hadn't heard from Tony in ten minutes._ _ _ _ _ _

______The realisation comes just in time for him to turn and watch the building Tony's inside go up in flames._ _ _ _ _ _

______****_ _ _ _ _ _

______Clint's a seasoned assassin who's lost more people he cares about than he cares to remember, but luckily Tony was in the suit. His ludicrously over-engineered suit which, even so is not enough protection for an EMP-and-dynamite bomb going off right underneath where he was standing._ _ _ _ _ _

______'I'm _fine _,' Tony's saying when Clint manages to break away from the Hill and Fury circus and sneak into medical. 'Out of my way, you harpy-'___ _ _ _ _ _

________'Anthony Edward Stark,' Clint snaps, in tones he's stolen from recordings of Pepper he got Jarvis to show him. 'Get _back _in that bed.'___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Tony freezes, bare legs covered in shiny burns and bruises under the paper gown halfway off the gurney. He hazards a charming grin, which is somewhat less than effective when he's got two black eyes and a pretty obvious concussion. 'Hey baby-'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'Nice try,' Clint ushers the nurse out of the way and eases Tony back onto the sheets, ghosting a kiss across his lips. 'Shut up and let them fix you up, you great big baby.'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Tony makes a choking noise in the back of his throat which morphs into actual choking until the nurse stomps over to the other side of the bed and stabs a syringe into Tony's leg._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'Hey!' Tony yelps through his coughs. 'Fucking SHIELD, what're you... bitches... motherfucker...'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'He going to be OK?' Clint asks when Tony's breathing has evened out into the sort of smooth sleeping rhythm Tony only usually gets after really vigorous sex._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'So long as he lets us treat him,' the nurse says, face tight. 'If we can keep him in bed for a week he should be all right for light duties.'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Clint lets his scepticism of the juxtaposition of 'Tony' and 'light duties' ever being likely show on his face. The nurse sighs, pats his shoulder and leaves him alone with his unconcious boyfriend._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________****_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________They manage to keep Tony sedated for three days, and then he's healed enough to be tied down for the remaining four. He spends a full hour shouting about the betrayal of using his own tech to tie him up, then a further half hour bitching the medical staff out for not following through on the implicit promise of creative sex._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Clint just works his way through the Get Well Soon fruit basket Pepper had sent, all the fruits Clint's favourites, and filming the whole thing on his Starkphone._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Tony being Tony, he manages to be enough of a combination of charm and irritating brat to convince the doctors to release him after only five days, with strict (if hopeless) instructions to take it easy. Clint gets Jarvis to lock down the armour for the next week to make sure._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'So what're you bitches doing about this shit?' Tony demands when Clint helps him into the briefing room the following Tuesday._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Fury jerks a finger at an empty chair and just continues glaring after Tony sits down._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________'Well...' Tony says, casting a raised-eyebrow stare around the room. 'Awesome as this faintly creepy stare-off is, I have _real _work to do.'___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________He twists carefully, hands braced on the table when Thor appears in the doorway, grinning and hugging Loki to his side._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________Tony sinks back into his chair, folding his arms and angling his body so he's between Clint and Loki. Cap's lips purse, Natasha gets her tiny keen-to-stab-some-bitches smile, and Banner closes his eyes to breathe deeply._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________'Well,' Loki says into the tense silence, a humourless smile completely failing to reach his eyes. 'Isn't this nice?'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	9. Chapter 9

Conforming to Fury's demand, Loki spends every minute on board in Thor's company.

Tony, healing quicker than expected but always slower than he'd like, had set up a camera feed in his lab that showed the gods' location at all times.

'You know Fury's mounted anti-tank lasers around the whole Helicarrier just tracking Loki, right?' Clint says, slipping an arm around Tony's middle and pressing his face into Tony's neck.

'Who do you think built them?' Tony counters, dropping any pretence of working and turning to rest his cheek on the top of Clint's head. 'We heard anything about where the bastards are?'

Clint makes a negative noise, lets his fingers do a check of Tony's bandages. All still in place and all dry, he's pleased to note. He's been wondering if he should nut up and call Pepper in to help keep Tony in line, but it looks like he won't have to after all.

They stay leaning against each other for a while. Clint's always a little surprised at how much he likes these moments; he'd never expected to have this, and he'd certainly never expected to like it so much.

'What day is it?' Tony asks eventually, brushing a kiss over Clint's forehead.

'Tuesday, sir,' Jarvis answers, and the holograms blink off. Dummy whirs over and starts herding Tony and Clint away from the desk. 'I respectfully recommend that you take a break to eat something which consists of more than three ingredients and void of caffeine.'

'Has Pepper figured out how to hack you?' Tony grins, pulling away from Clint with a sigh to pat Dummy's arm.

'Miss Potts did indeed request a limit on your 'science benders',' Jarvis's tone makes it sound like he's trying to edge a dead mouse off a French Polished table, and Clint has to bite his lip to stifle the laugh that wants out. 'But she has not instituted any subroutines in my programming.'

'Just doing her a favour, huh?' Clint grabs Tony's hand and pulls him towards the door. 'Thanks, Jarvis. I'll shovel some stir fry into him, something with three different colour of vegetables?'

'That would be perfect, Agent Barton,' Jarvis replies, and the lights start shutting off, leaving only the spotlight on the elevator lit. 'Goodnight, sir.'

'Night, Jarvis,' Tony yawns hugely, and Clint laughs at the way it seems to take him by surprise.

'Come on, Princess,' he says, walking Tony into the car. 'Nom noms then beddy-byes.'

****

Clint makes a mean stir fry, and the smells of ginger and soy spread through the tower, enticing the Avengers towards the kitchen. It's a good thing he made his usual sized batch. It usually last him a week, but from the looks on Natasha and Cap's faces it won't last an hour.

'If you bitches want food, you can set the table,' he says, dropping a whole punnet of snow peas into the wok and flipping the heat off.

Cap grins and goes for the flatware. Natasha raises an eyebrow and produces a six pack of Lucky Beer from whatever extra dimension she keeps all the shit she carries in. Ain't no way she has room in her suit for even half the weapons she pulls.

Clint leaves the stir fry to sit while he goes and pries Tony out of the shower, shoves him into a set of sweats with cartoon arc reactors on them, because Tony is _ridiculous_. They spend a minute trading kisses in the hall, until Natasha yells threats against their everything if she has to wait more than two more minutes for food.

'I've actually got a scar to prove that she _will_ shank for food,' Clint murmurs into Tony's lips, and goes to plate up.

****

Clint isn't as blasé about Loki's presence as he'd like Tony to believe, and frankly, the way Loki's working the remorse angle at his brother is ringing _all_ sorts of bells.

Which is why he's creeping around the Helicarrier vents again, collapsible bow and an assortment of the nastier arrows ready and willing to put a crimp in Loki's day.

'Brother,' Thor's saying now, as close to a whisper as he's capable (read: not close at all). 'Surely you have found some morsel of information? You have been working this past sen'night. Is there no clue you can divulge?'

Clint tracks the way Loki's shoulders hunch just enough to seem like genuine shame; the carefully-revealed emotion in Loki's dark eyes. Clint clenches his fist for thirty seconds, counting in steamboats like Franny the Psychic had used to. After thirty seconds, he relaxes and gets back into the zone.

'Perhaps...' Loki says, and it really _does_ almost sound sincere, Clint's impressed. 'I was reluctant to say until I was sure-'

Thor takes the two strides to seize Loki's shoulders. 'What, brother?'

Loki glances down, then up past Thor to level a heavy-lidded stare at Clint, before his eyes lock with Thor's. 'I may have a way to lure her and her bondsmen to a location of our choosing. I fear I cannot uncover her location, but I may be able to bring her into the light.'

Thor drags Loki into one of his hilariously smothering, bone-crushing hugs and thumps him on the back.

'This is WONDERFUL news!' he booms, and whirls for the door. 'Director Fury will be MOST gratified to learn of this victory!'

Loki grins up at Clint and strides after Thor, catching at his sleeves and murmuring too softly for Clint to hear. The door swooshes closed behind them and Clint rolls onto his back to stare up at the ceiling of the vent.

Yay, another certain trap. This job is the _best_.

****

From the way Fury drags all six Avengers (plus Loki), Hill, and twenty ranking agents into an eyes only briefing room about three minutes after Thor's finished raving about his brother's genius, Clint's assuming they're treating it as real intel for at least the moment.

'So,' Tony strolls around the table, and Clint can tell the lack of things to fiddle with is getting him even more antsy. 'Finally decided to seal the deal, L-Diddy? What happened, Nick here threaten to cut your funding if you didn't deliver results? Great way to get your people to deliver, Nick. Of course, what they mostly deliver usually turns out to be less than kosher.'

Loki smiles, wide and bright, but he doesn't say anything.

Yeah, Clint sighs, leaning back against the wall next to the door. This is going to be great.

****

Whatever it is Loki does (and Clint is not even going to try and understand it, no way Loki told them the truth anyway) actually works. Amora walks out from behind a wall, hips swaying invitingly.

'My Lord,' she calls, smirking at each of the damn well hidden snipers ranged around the rooftops and upper floors of the empty warehouses they'd secured, and Clint really wishes he could be surprised when Loki blasts some sort of blue energy at the SHIELD agents around him and strides over to kiss Amora.

'LOKI!' Thor howls, calling lightning down, but it dissipates six feet above their heads, and Loki sends another blast into Thor's chest, sending him crashing through a brick wall and into a forklift.  
'Well, paint my nipples and call me Spanky,' Tony drawls over comms, staying high and clear like he's waiting for something. 'Didn't see _that_ one coming.'

Clint makes a noise of agreement, keeping an eye on Thor until he bounces back up, absolutely unharmed. Gods, Clint shakes his head, and refocuses on the two sociopaths in the middle of the open concrete.

'You have served well, Sorceress,' Loki says, tucking her hair behind her ear and pivoting to smirk at Fury. 'I have heard much of your mortal toys. Do you bring them here. We owe much pain to these Midgardian fools.'

'As you command, Lord,' Amora bows and the air ripples. Cap's shield flies into the face of the first Hydra trooper, but he's only the first of hundreds. AIM's there, too, ranged around the edges of the Hydra platoons, and hey! Looks like the shiny woman got that Piledriver guy and a few friends too. Clint looses a few explosive rounds into the thickest throngs and sends another knock-out arrow at the guy with the ball and chain.

'Bruce, baby,' Tony calls as he dives in a low arc, repulsors and lasers sending bad guys toppling around like bowling pins. 'We might need the Other Guy soon.'

Clint risks a glance at the corner where Banner had been huddled, and glory be! It's full to the brim of naked green angry. Hulk roars and bounds towards the guy with the crowbar.

'You know, Tony,' Clint says in conversational tones as he leaps from his perch just ahead of a missile. 'You really need to get on that stretchy pants material. I'm sick of giant green dong making me feel inadequate.'

'Oh Sweet cheeks,' Tony croons, catching Clint by the belt and depositing him on a fire escape. 'You're man enough for me.'

'No,' Natasha cuts in, the sound of screams behind her voice on comms, to no one's surprise. 'You need to get on Hulk-proof pants, Stark. I'm going to have to insist.'

'You heard the lady,' Cap joins in, and Clint has to grin when the guy does an honest-to-God cartwheel, kicking Piledriver in the face on the way down. Looks like something right out of Xena, and the look on Piledriver's face makes it even better.

Clint sends a knock-out cap towards him, and 'Whoo! Eat it, bitch! Two for two to me!'

It looks like Loki and Amora are still standing in the middle of the battle, but there's a bit of a shimmer around them that Clint is pretty sure means there's an illusion at work. He's confirmed when Hulk and the guy with the ball and chain crash through them without knocking the two assholes into the floor. There's a corner near the hole Loki knocked Clint through that he finds himself reluctant to look at, though. Interesting.

'We ready?' Fury comes over comms, and Clint takes a look around. There's mayhem everywhere, Natasha's hair a bright flash in and out of the worst knots, and the shimmer Amora's army had come through is completely gone. Thor's taken to the sky, Tony's retreated up too, and it looks like the bad guys have fully committed to the manoeuvre.

'Copy that, sir,' Clint swings down to ground level. The other snipers can take over from here. 'Enemy fully engaged, you are good to go.'

'Roger that,' Fury sounds like he's grinning. 'Punch it, Stark.'

The force field snaps on like a light, buzzing like a million angry bees, and it collapses just as fast. It passes harmlessly over the Avengers and SHIELD, Tony's hilariously gaudy necklaces countering it, but it acts like a taser on Hydra, AIM and the big goons.

'BOO-YEAH!' Tony crows, turning a loop in the air and sending a few repulsor blasts at the guys who hadn't been flattened. 'SCIENCE, BITCHES!'

Ridiculous, Clint grins to himself, but he's close enough to the don't-look zone that he needs all his focus. He thumbs around to a taser cap and hurls himself forward. He hits a body, takes it to the ground and rolls clear to stab with the arrow.

'Darling,' Amora kicks like a mule, and Clint's arrow just hits concrete. She kicks again, catching him in the ribs, and Clint can hear them break. She gets to her feet, smile a wide blood-and-bone gash in her face. 'Surely you do not think yourself fit to challenge _gods_?'

There's a knife under each of his wrist guards, and Clint starts working one out under cover of clutching at his ribs. 'Fuck you, bitch, I'll challenge anyone.'

She sneers, but before she can say anything, there's a spear emerging from her chest. She blinks down at it, shock warring with rage on her face. Loki's face appears over her shoulder, leaning in to whisper something in her ear, press a kiss to her cheek. Then he shoves and she's a bloody heap on the ground.

Loki looks down at her, expression unreadable, then Thor's landing beside him and dragging him into a hug.

'Brother,' Thor's voice shakes a little, and Clint thinks he might be crying. 'Your deeds this day shall be sung for many years in the halls of Valhalla!'

Loki shifts, lifting his arms gingerly and wrapping them around Thor. 'You are my brother,' he says, and apparently that's all that needs saying. They just keep hugging, oblivious to the world around them.

Well. OK, then. Clint will get _himself_ to the medics, then.


	10. Chapter 10

The nurses don't release him for a full two hours, even though _all_ that's wrong is a few cracked ribs.

Clint's really pretty tired, though, so he just sits patiently and waits. Which apparently leads the doctor to believing that something is _catastrophically wrong_ , and Clint gets to make frenemies with both the dude who runs the CAT scanner _and_ the one running the MRI.

'See if I try and be nice again,' Clint shouts after the doctor's back when she's taken the third lot of blood. 'You rotten... oh, hey.'

Pepper lifts an eyebrow at him and walks over to the bedside chair. 'You know, I'm relying on you keeping out of the hospital so Tony doesn't go on a feelings-avoidance bender of any sort.'

'Oh god,' Clint groans, flipping the blanket off his legs. To hell with waiting for discharge. 'What's he done now? It's only been three hours since the fight!'

Pepper lays a hand on his arm and reaches over to twitch the blanket back in place. 'Steve's sitting on him in the waiting room.'

'Literally?' Clint perks up. 'Tell me someone's taking pictures.'

Pepper's lips twitch, and oh yeah. She's got Natasha filming it. After a moment, her expression slides back towards concern, and Clint rolls his eyes.

'I have cracked ribs, courtesy of a now-deceased fairy princess on PCP,' he says. 'Not palladium poisoning. I'm _fine_.'

'I'm sure you've noticed that Tony's a little difficult sometimes,' Pepper smiles at the expression on Clint's face. 'I'm equally sure you can be too.'

'Preach it, sister,' Clint says, since there's no one here to do it for him.

'You know,' Pepper says after a moment's scrutiny of Clint. 'I'd planned a whole big speech about looking after Tony Or Else, but it's not necessary, is it?'

'Of course not,' Clint scratches at the place where the bandage is rubbing his chest. 'But if you'd worked out any really juicy metaphors or neat phrasings you can let rip.'

'You're good for him,' she idly straightens the blanket.

'We're good for each other,' Clint replies, and they sit in comfortable silence until the doctor comes by with Clint's release papers.

****

Tony's been removed back home by some sensible person, so all Clint has to do is check in with Hill, change into his street gear, and then sign a chopper out to take Pepper down to the tower. She's the most important person in Tony's life, and he's still a little guilty about how everything went down, so Clint is really careful about not buzzing any of the office blocks or Avengers Tower's neighbours. She shoots him an amused look as he shuts the engine down, and follows him down to the shared floor.

'Hey Tony,' Clint yells as they approach the kitchen. 'Found a stray wanderin' around.'

Tony saunters out, overly-large glass of scotch in one hand and an air of calm which is too obviously fake for Clint to even want to call him on it. He gives Clint a once-over, shoulders relaxing at what he sees, then her beams at Pepper.

'Pep! Darling, you coming back to New York finally?'

'I _could_ be convinced to start dividing my time between Malibu and here,' she says, brushing past Clint with a gentle hand on his shoulder to offer her cheek to Tony. 'Is Steve around?'

'Like that is is?' Tony grins approvingly. 'I suppose it's hard to find someone who isn't a step down from me, but I'll give you Captain America.'

' _Please_ , Tony,' Pepper flips her hair over her shoulder with a crooked smile. 'Almost no one else would _dare_ to try half the things you pulled on a weekly basis. Anyone who has even the most cursory familiarity with punctuality or the vaguest sense of appropriate behaviour is immediately ahead of you in the boyfriend game.'

Tony laughs, slipping around Pepper to put his arm around Clint's waist. 'All right. Go find your Brooklyn Prince Charming, then.'

Pepper shoots Clint a warm smile before heading into the kitchen, and Tony cups Clint's face to give him a lingering kiss.

'Nice work with the taserfield,' Clint breathes when Tony pulls back. 'Though I don't envy Hill having to supervise the processing of five hundred jumpsuited looneys.'

'You get the all-clear from the docs?' Tony buries his nose in Clint's neck, and Clint can feel feather-light kisses dotting their way along his collarbone. 'Because I have a bottle of-'

'Please desist from your necking,' someone says from behind them, and Clint whites out for a moment when he turns too quickly for his ribs' sake. When he can breathe again, he sees Stephen Strange standing by one of Tony's giant rich-people vases, arms folded and a pissier than usual expression on his face. 'We have important work to do.'

'Who the fuck are you,' Tony demands, one hand coming up to ease Clint behind him. 'And how in the name of Nicholas Fury's missing eye did you get in here?'

'That's Strange, Tony,' Clint takes Tony's hand and gives it a squeeze. 'Otherwise known as the guy who totally failed to deliver on his promise to 'render assistance',' he sing-songs the quote, though he's not sure he got the actual words right. Whatever; dude bailed on the one thing he promised to do. Asshole.

Strange pulls a pissy face, and Clint has to hand it to the guy; he has a marvellous range of them. 'I have not reneged,' he sniffs and looks at the wall. 'I said I would be there for the final battle, and here I am.'

'Dude,' Clint shakes his head. ' _You missed it_. After that huge deal you made about knowing where you were needed-'

'And that need is here and now,' Strange turns an unsettling gaze on Clint, then turns back to the wall.

'Uh,' Clint can feel himself pulling a face. 'Big Bad's dead, you know? And I'm pretty sure there ain't any supernatural evil hiding in the drywall, so...'

Tony breaks in with 'There isn't any fucking drywall in my tower, Clint! It's space age tech all the way; literally! Those walls? That's the shit the newest Mars rover's gonna be made from!'

Clint snorts, because there's no way to take Tony seriously sometimes, but Strange drops into a crouch, fingers twisting in ways that kind of hurt to look at somehow.

'Avengers!' Clint yells, but he can't get much volume. 'Jarvis! Get them down here-'

There's a pop, a flash, and giant tentacles whip out of the wall which until that moment Clint would have sworn was between the hallway and a toilet. They look a little ghostly; he can totally see the vase though them, and whatever Strange is doing seems to be keeping them away from him and Tony.

They're whipping in a real frenzy, though, and it looks like holding them back is a real strain.

'What can we do?' Clint demands, reaching into the small of his back for his knife. 'Who are we-'

'Hello, darlings,' and yeah, Clint guesses that trusting Loki to _actually_ kill his psychotic girlfriend was probably a mistake. 'Did you _really_ think-'

'God, shut _up_!' Clint darts around Tony and Strange to stab at her, and huh. Loki must have done _something_ after all, because the blow lands. It's only a flesh wound, a ragged slice along her arm, but given that Clint had expected to get punted straight through the wall before he got three feet from her...

He lunges again, but she's too quick. He manages to get out of her range just as Thor bursts through a wall, leaving a gaping hole through twenty feet of reinforced concrete to the open air.

'My apologies, Tony,' Thor says as he advances on Amora. ''Twas the most expedient route to render assistance.'

'It's all cool, Thor,' Tony grins, clearly frustrated that he's not in the armour, but something must be blocking the bracelets. 'Break whatever, just hand that bitch her head.'

Thor inclines his head, and Clint ducks around the hole in the wall and pulls Tony well away from it all. Strange is sweating, muttering and glowing and all sorts of magic bullshit, but the tentacles seem to be gaining ground.

Clint makes a mental note to tell Fury to get on finding someone to give SHIELD a crash course in sparkly-rainbow magic shit, because he is really kind of super pissed off that he doesn't know what to do here.

Thor lets out a roar which can only be described as 'thunderous', and leaps at Amora. She must still be shaken y whatever Loki did, because she doesn't vanish, she just squares up and slugs Thor in the chest with no discernible effect. Thor swings Mjonir almost gently, knocking her into Strange's barrier, and he bears her down to the ground, hissing furiously at her.

It mustn't be in the Allspeak, though, because it just sounds like angry gravel to Clint. He and Tony exchange a frustrated stare, unable to do anything but watch as Thor pins her and mutters over her wails.

It takes a while, but eventually she grows still, slumping into what seems to be unconsciousness. Thor pulls a rope from under his breastplate and wraps it tight around her.

'She will be dealt with on Asgard,' Thor says, glancing up with a challenging expression. Maybe he thinks they'll protest him taking her away?

'Fine by me, buddy,' Clint says, folding his arms carefully so as not to jostle his ribs. 'Seen enough of her to last a fucking lifetime. But you're also gonna have to take your goddamn brother away; I swear I'm gonna shoot him if I see him again.'

Thor's face darkens. 'My father shall certainly have words for Loki's treacherous actions. As shall I.'

That's probably the best anyone's ever going to get out of Thor and his totally fucked up devotion to his brother, so Clint nods.

'If you're _quite_ finished,' Strange grits out, and wow. OK, he's actually getting pushed along the floor by the tentacles, albeit really slowly. 'Perhaps one of you might see fit to laying a hand on me and letting me draw on your strength?'

Clint takes an automatic step forward, but Tony yanks him back by the collar. ' _No_ you don't, Mister. Is it willpower or raw energy you need?'

Strange gives Tony a considering look; the most friendly expression Clint's seen on his face to date, and extends his hand towards Tony. 'Willpower. Will you lend me yours, Tony?'

'Sure thing,' Tony grins and takes Strange's hand. 'Anything to get this fucking hentai nightmare out of my hallway.'

****

Strange hangs around for a full three minutes after the 'eldritch abominations' have been taken care of, explaining to Tony (and Tony _alone_ , Clint is amused to note) that Amora had made some sort of deal with some sort of blah-blah-magic-bullshit-blah-blah-blah.

Clint leave Tony and his hilariously irate expression at Strange and his magic to go find Natasha and laugh at her for missing out on the fun.

He finds her on the roof, holding the end of an honest-to-god _leash_ with Loki on the other end, muzzle back in place. Clint glories in the image for a moment.

'So I guess you kept yourself busy, then?' he grins at her, watching as Thor appears in the doorway with Amora slung over a shoulder. 'You weren't sitting idly playing Dance Dance Revolution while Tony and I battled monsters from the Dungeon Dimensions?'

Natasha flicks him an unimpressed look. 'Firstly, sitting idly and playing Dance Dance are incompatible. Secondly, Steve and I had to rescue Bruce from one of your Dungeon Dimension monsters. They weren't just in your hallway, you know.'

A sudden horrible thought strikes Clint. 'Pepper's OK, though, isn't she? Shit, do I need to get Tony to a hospital somewhere-'

'Pepper stabbed an eldritch abomination in the neck with her Manolos,' Natasha says, and damn. That's approval and respect right there. Clint lets himself relax again. 'She was complaining that Tony owes her another five pairs as replacement, but I'm pretty sure she and the Captain were headed down to 'Snice for coffee.'

She raises her eyebrows at him, and Clint grins. 'You got him to skip debrief?'

'Me?' Natasha laughs. 'Pepper took him by the elbow and _dragged_ him out the door. So you can handle Fury. _I_ am going to wash my hair nine times and use up all Tony's bubble bath as soon as Thor's off.'

Thor strides over, bowing as he relieves Natasha of the leash and shooting a furious glare at Loki. He steps back, bellows for Heimdall, and then they're gone.

'Well,' Clint stretches carefully, taking slow and careful steps towards the stairwell. 'I'll just be-'

'Detailing this clusterfuck for me over incredibly shitty coffee in the Helicarrier?' Fury asks from right behind him, tone homicidally jolly. ' _Thank_ you , Barton. That will be great.'

'Yes sir,' Clint sighs. 'It's a doozy, sir.'

****

Tony's pretending to be asleep by the time Clint gets out of the debrief, and it's a pretty good fake for a civilian, but Clint's been in the field with Natasha, Phil, Hill _and_ Fury, so it's pretty easy to pick that he's awake.

'Hey, Tony,' he drops onto the mattress, pulling his shirt over his head and letting it fall to the floor. 'Fury gave me another month off. You have anything to do with that?'

'Me?' Tony rolls over and runs a hand down Clint's spine. 'Why on Earth would you think I'd make Nick Fury give you time off?'

Clint laughs, and presses Tony into the mattress.

'I love you,' Tony says between kisses.

'Yeah you do,' Clint grins, and flicks the lights off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the coffee shop Pepper took Steve, I literally just googled 'awesome coffee manhattan' and picked the best-looking review on the first page. If anyone has strong opinions about where a classy lady like Pepper would take a hot piece of meat like Steve and you'd like me to change it, fire away!
> 
> This is probably the last part of **Tony the Polyglot** , at least for a while. Though if anyone has any burning interest in, say, Fury's POV, or Steve and Pepper's date, or any prompt-fu you feel is strong enough to overcome my general inertia, please let me know. I was absolutely blindsided by this 'verse, and I adore it, so if you want more tell me!
> 
> Or you are ABSOLUTELY more than welcome to explore it yourself if you would like to! I'd love to see what you come up with, too! Please come play in my sandbox if you want to, in whatever format you prefer!
> 
> Any requests, prompts, corrections, or general comments are welcome here, at my LJ (meh_guh.livejournal.com) or at my tumblr (meh-guh.tumblr.com), where you can go anon or not; whatever works for you ^_^
> 
> Thank you so much everyone for reading, commenting, kudosing, and being ever so patient while I flopped around not finishing this. You guys ALL rock like the whole geology department. Love you all! <3<3<3


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